Android 15 improves volume panel and could make it collapsible

Back in 2021, Google released Material You, a major overhaul of the company’s design language. Material You design elements were first incorporated into his Android 12 release that year. Android’s current design hasn’t changed significantly since then, although some subsequent releases have seen small tweaks. With the upcoming Android 15 release, Google is finally planning to revamp the system volume panel UI.

When the user presses the volume key and taps the three-dot menu at the bottom, the volume panel appears. The current design features five different sliders for each volume stream. These include, from top to bottom, volume controls for media, calls, ringtones, notifications, and alarms. Control each level with a thin slider. Apart from the panel header, stream icon, and slider, there is also a button to open Android sound and vibration settings and close the panel. Finally, if there is active media playback, a shortcut to open Android’s media output switcher will appear below the media volume slider.

Android’s current volume panel design is a carbon copy of the volume slider section below. Settings > Sound and vibration. This is because the volume panel is actually made up of “slices” (a feature introduced in Android 9 Pie) taken from that very page.

However, in the latest Android 15 Developer Preview 2 release, you could manually activate the new volume panel UI, which is separate from this. The new volume panel design features a much thicker pill-shaped slider, as shown below. A dot will be placed at the end of the slider’s maximum value, and you can also tap the icon to mute that stream immediately.

Android 15’s new volume panel is also collapsible. Tap the button next to the media volume slider to collapse or expand the panel. The volume panel is collapsed by default when there is active media playback. Otherwise, it will open fully expanded.

The “Sounds and Vibrations” header is also gone, replaced by a persistent media output shortcut. Previously, media output shortcuts were only visible when there was active media playback. The updated design shows shortcuts regardless of the media playback state. However, if there is no active media playback, tapping the shortcut will not open the media output switcher. Instead, the shortcut appears to be there just to tell the user which audio device is currently handling playback.

Google has also added playful animations to the new Android 15 volume panel. As you can see in the video above, the stream name text moves with the slider, so you can always see the stream name when adjusting the volume level. As you move the slider, the current volume level will also be displayed instead of the icon.

Apart from the new design, the volume panel also shows additional controls such as spatial audio and ‘noise control’. However, I was unable to see these controls during testing. This updated volume panel design is not enabled by default in the current Android 15 Developer Preview 2 build, but Google may roll it out in a future beta release.